Tamil Malar's head slams troublemakers who caused fracas (Video)
PETALING JAYA: A Tamil-language daily here said it is disappointed with the fracas that took place outside its office despite its assurance to the Federal Territory MIC that it was willing to publish the party's rebuttal to the story it had published.
The Tamil Malar's managing director S. M. Periasamy told theSun that he had invited MIC Federal Territory liaison committee chairman Datuk M. Saravanan to his office to tell his side of the story and it will be published on the front page of the paper.
"I received a phone call from Saravanan complaining about the story that we had ran about the rental collection of a MIC owned building in Federal Territory on Tuesday at about 10am. As I was on my way to Seremban, I told him to come to my office in the afternoon about 1pm and tell me his side of the story.
"I assured him the story will be printed on the front page, to which he agreed. But one hour later, I received a call from my staff informing me that the ground floor of our headquarters were filled with trouble makers," he told theSun when called.
He immediately instructed the staff to lock the doors, but still, editor Oms Thiagarajan and legal advisor K. Saraswathy were roughed up, .
Three police reports have been lodged since, against Saravanan who is also the Deputy Youth and Sports Minister.
He explained that the story that angered MIC youth members was about rental collection of a building which he claimed to belong to MIC.
"We only wrote about the rental collection of the building in Jalan Lumut which was bought in 1974 by MIC. The rental collection of this building was not reflected in MIC's annual reports and a question on the matter was brought up last Sunday at the MIC Wilayah annual general meeting."
Saravanan has since refuted sending his men to the Tamil daily's headquarters in Jalan Ipoh to rough the staff up but said he went there to prevent his partymen from making trouble.
He also downplayed the incident which was recorded and gone viral as just a scuffle and people were "just pushing each other".
Dang Wangi district police chief ACP Sukri Kaman confirmed police reports had been made and police were in the process of recording statements from both sides.
Below are videos of the incident: